the Crumbling house between two towers

          There is an old apartment building on Pepper st. in the town of Lochinver. Not many people know of it and if they so do, they most usually don't care. After all, what is an old house to anyone these days?
          No one ever notices, save for the residents of the building, how the walls are cracked, how the exterior paint has pealed, the moss on the ornaments or the rattling windows of an apartment long abandoned. The people who pass by don't care for those within nor do they stop to marvel at the once colorful abode that, at one time, was so full of life. The couldn't care less for it's history, what it's walls have seen and heard. The do not ponder upon these matters, for they have things to do, places to be and no time to waste on nonsense such as compassion or empathy. Thinking of these things takes time and to them time is money.
        Every now and then there would be someone to rest their legs on a bench across the street with nothing more important to do than to look at that house, hear the sounds it and it's residents make and feel a little sorry for the people that live in the old house. They see the drunk on the ground floor window sipping from his glass of cheap scotch, they notice a couple's agitated voices coming from the very top floor and an old lady staring out the window into the sky, her hands supporting her head as if she was daydreaming.
       But this one time a young lad walked by on a cloudy, drizzly day at dusk, wearing a white shirt, a dusty cravat and a vest.The towering youth was weary from walking in the city all day, carrying his suitcase full of necessities in search of a place to stay the night. He had come to Lochinver from the town of Dorian Grove to have an adventure and to meet old friends he had met a few years back, with whom only a hand-full of letters had been exchanged. He hadn't come alone to this town, but he got separated from his companion and quickly got lost due to his lack of orientation skills. After a long walk he reached the bench across the street from the crumbling old house.
       The young, tall man sat down on the white wooden bench and opened his case to take a bottle of wine. He checked his pockets for a bottle opener, but realized he had left it with his friend. Cussing from frustration and the ache in his feet he pushed the cork in using a stick he found from the sidewalk. He shut his eyes and hastily gulped down several mouthfuls of the cheap beverage. After that he took a moment to calm down and  began to look around. The first thing he saw was the building on front of him, right across the boulevard. But unlike most of the people who walk by, he had time and nothing of more importance to attend to, and unlike most of the people who had sat on this bench, he saw how beautiful this building really was.
     He saw the cracked walls, peeling paint and moldy gargoyles, yet unlike the others he did not feel for those dwelling within, on the contrary! He envied them. He imagined this house as it once was, beautiful and teeming with life and joy. He wished he could know what these walls have heard and seen, he wished he could have known it all.
    He thought this was the most fascinating and beautiful abode he had ever witnessed. Everything about it gave it an oddly high aesthetic value in the eyes of the young lad. He loved everything about that place. The drunk in the apartment in the ground floor, the couple upstairs, the sounds of music from one of the middle floors and the old lady who kept looking into the cloud-ridden sky.
    For a long time the young man sat there, embracing fully the sights and sounds from the old crumbling house. only as the sun had already set and the bottle of cheap wine was empty did he pick up his case and leave. Although he never saw that house again, he never forgot the time he found the crumbling house between two towers.